Loose Again [Me]

We pulled Stephanie out of cold storage this weekend. We talked to Boss about it for a while, and then he held us while all of the folk in my head went to the storage inside our system, and opened the drawer and brought her out. I had to visualize a lot of this on purpose, because I'm not used to operating in that 'inside my head' world so much. And it felt weird to purposely leave my body, um, unattended, so to speak.

We did 'tweak' her as she was being brought back out. We tried to make her a little older. The approximately twelve-year-old Stephanie that had been was still suffering from fresh physical trauma. Paul had found her memory of it after she was shelved. So we tried to age her a little to a time when she at least wouldn't be physically hurting so much. And that succeeded. She doesn't really have a good handle on time, or on using numbers to count, so we can't be sure, but Paul feels pretty strongly that she's about fourteen now. She still limped and held her arm and mouth a bit awkwardly, but she also used her left her arm some and didn't hurt so badly.

Paul actually has become her caretaker, to some extent. I can't tell if this is temporary, or a job he's taken on long-term. But for the first few hours she was out, Boss had questions to ask her. And on her own, Stephanie doesn't answer questions very well. Boss and I have both agreed that she must be autistic. Many of the questions don't make sense to the way she thinks, or she may just fail to register that a question is being presented. So Paul shoved a lot of his energy into an attempt to be somewhat co-conscious with her, and helped her focus on hearing and trying to answer questions. Because she's mute, Boss was limited to yes-no questions. And some of those didn't have a yes-no answer for her, so I think he only got about half of them answered. 'Do you like...?' questions are particularly hard for her. As a slave, expressing wants and desires is a dangerous thing. Saying you like something could be a way to get it, but it could also be setting up a way for that to be used against you.

We were able to get a sense of Stephanie's history during those two years, in her own world. Apparently the incident came to the attention of the Master, as it involved a valuable horse. And she was hurt so badly that he actually called a doctor out to look at her, and she ended up confined to a bed for at least a few weeks, under the care of one of the house slaves. A few months pass, and the Master wagered a number of slaves in a poker game and lost, and managed to foist her off on the preacher who won the game. The preacher was actually a pretty decent guy, and decided to teach Stephanie at least a few skills that might make her at least somewhat desirable as a slave. About two years after the accident, he sold her again. This coincided well with the 'two years older' we were looking to slide her age, so she seems to believe that Boss is this new Master. And so doesn't really remember him from before going into storage.

Paul reported later that he could hear other people's voices in Stephanie's thoughts. Not like other alters, but her remembering things she's heard from people. One of the things he heard over and over was in response to those 'Do you like...?' questions. He kept hearing, "That's a trap." in a woman's voice, someone older than Stephanie - maybe her Mammy? Something he heard in the preacher's voice was a little more defined; "You're an ugly child, and dumb along with it. Ain't nobody gonna want you where they have to look at you. But you got nice titties, and you follow orders when yer payin' attention. You do what yer told, chile, and you'll make yer way."

Boss talked to her right away about following my orders when inside, and his outside. He also talked to her about not coming out except at home or when he tells her to - but I'm not sure if she got that. She nodded a lot like she understood, but most of her reactions to what he says are much more on the order of reacting the way she thinks he wants her to, rather than honest reactions. For instance, she agreed that she liked several things that sent shudders of panic through her, because she thought he wanted her to like them. I've warned him not to really put any faith in any of her reactions; ask Paul if he really wants something honest.